


Reach

by m_class



Series: February F/F Prompts [3]
Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Battle of the Binary Stars, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, I've decided she has two dads who are supportive dorks, Injury, Nightmares, Past Character Death, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and a pinch of Joann backstory, honestly a lot of OC's made it into this for only 1.3k words¯|_(ツ)_|¯, me? having time to catch up on fic? it's more likely than you think!, plus an angsty cameo of an Academy gf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-23 10:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20006788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_class/pseuds/m_class
Summary: Prompt: Kisses pressed to a sweaty brow, comforting after snapping awake from a nightmare. A reassurance in the dark that they don’t face the night alone.





	Reach

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to bookofuncommonprayer on tumblr for sending in this prompt back during my February F/F event! It’s been a while since February at this point, so this one's a little longer to make up for it. ;) I really enjoyed this prompt, because I’d previously written a scene where Joann [reflects on the routine she and Keyla have fallen into after Keyla’s nightmares](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16629047/chapters/40112978), but I hadn’t yet written an actual nightmare scene for them. So, this was fun opportunity to expand my fic-verse for these two! <3

“Joann.”

Joann’s eyelids flutter open at the soft nudge of Keyla’s hand against her shoulder, and she blinks herself awake in seconds, meeting Keyla’s eyes through the soft oh-three-hundred darkness of Keyla’s quarters. Hours ago, they fell asleep facing each other, bodies curled gently toward each other like parentheses. Now Joann’s gaze flies over her girlfriend, noting how her body is tense; her gaze still slightly hazy with sleep. She must have just woken.

“Another one?” Joann whispers.

Keyla nods, and Joann reaches over to click the switch of the lamp on the nightstand. Warm yellow light spreads across the bed, illuminating the soft grey Starfleet-issue comforter and glinting off Keyla’s cortical implant. Her forehead is damp with sweat, and her fingers grip the edge of the comforter tightly.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Joann asks.

Keyla nods, her body finally untensing slightly as she scooches forward to wrap her arms around Joann, burying her face against Joann’s shoulder. Joann wraps her arms around her, pressing her cheek against Keyla’s hair.

“I love you,” she whispers. Keyla tucks her head more tightly against Joann’s collarbone, and Joann rubs her back gently with one hand, feeling the rise and fall of her short, choppy breaths.

In the four months they have been together, they have developed a routine of sorts. Joann turns on the light, and they hold each other for a few minutes, Keyla’s breaths calming and her heartrate slowing as she and Joann breathe together, before Keyla begins to put her nightmare into words.

Joann rubs Keyla’s back steadily, trying to keep her own breathing regular and even so that Keyla’s body will have a rhythm to sync with. As she breathes, she finds herself feeling grateful, as ever, for the moment in their third night together when Keyla first dared to wake her, asking for and accepting Joann’s help with a burden she had been facing entirely alone.

Drishti, Joann’s second Academy girlfriend, had nightmares, too. But when they came, they came loud, Drishti thrashing weakly in the covers and half-screaming through sleeping vocal cords, a noise that woke Joann in instants. Keyla’s nightmares cause no external sign of the agony her sleeping brain is putting her through until she wakes, frozen and silent, and nudges Joann.

Thinking of Drishti, now a decorated lieutenant, Joann finds herself wondering how she’s doing in her post-war posting _. I should comm her on my day off._ Which reminds her that she really needs to write back her dads back by the end of the week, too; their last letter arrived a week ago, and it takes an extra day each way to exchange mail with home, her family and friends’ handwritten letters sorted at the town center and sent to the nearest communications hub to be scanned and transmitted via subspace to the Discovery. When they arrive, Joann handwrites her own responses before scanning and subspacing them back to the hub to be printed and delivered home.

She is mulling over what to write—Papa will love to hear about the delicate, dawn-colored plants she and Burnham found on this week’s mission planetside, while Dad is perennially nosy about all things Keyla—when Keyla herself peels gently away from Joann’s shoulder, settling onto the pillow facing Joann. Joann lifts her hand from Keyla’s back and gently takes Keyla’s hand in hers, rubbing her thumb over Keyla’s fingers and waiting.

“I was back on the bridge of the Shenzhou,” Keyla begins, her voice quiet. “The explosions came, and I fell onto the deck, but instead of passing out like in real life, I kept lying there facing the other side of the helm, where Danby would have been, and I looked up at his empty seat and then back down at the deck, and then—and then he was there, lying on the deck next to me. But instead of looking the way he actually did when he left the bridge to—to go to sickbay—” Keyla’s mouth twists. “Instead of looking the way he did when he left the bridge to go to sickbay and, and—and died in the hull breach, he…” She swallows, closing her eyes momentarily before continuing. “His face was bloody, and there was a gash in the side of his head so deep you could see bone and—and other stuff—” The words grate from her mouth, hoarse and quiet. “And his eyes were blank, and I looked at him and I knew that he was hurt exactly like me.”

Joann exhales softly in sympathy, and Keyla closes her eyes again before pressing onward. “And I tried—I tried to reach out to him, but my arms wouldn’t move, like I was frozen in place, and then I could hear screaming from right behind me and somehow I knew that the screaming was everyone who died in the battle, screaming for help, and I couldn’t move to help them. I couldn’t move.” Joann notices that Keyla's body has grown tense again, and she jogs Keyla’s hand just a little in hers. Keya exhales, her body unfreezing and relaxing back into the mattress slightly as she finishes, a hint of a wry smile touching the corners of her mouth, “And then I woke up.”

“Oh, Keyla,” Joann whispers. She squeezes Keyla’s hand, and Keyla squeezes back. “I’m sorry.”

Eyes still closed, Keyla nods in acknowledgement, her tired voice suddenly urgent. “Jo. You remember the, the stuff about vicarious trauma? How I’m only gonna tell you about the nasty things if you promise to do the vicarious trauma self care stuff from the sheet?”

“Yes, I remember. I’ll do it tomorrow. Don’t worry.” Joann strokes her thumb over Keyla’s fingers again. “I’ll do it tomorrow. I promise.”

“It’s just—” Keyla's eyes open, and the expression in them twists Joann’s insides. “I’m so so _tired_ of going back to that bridge and I don’t want you to get trapped there the way I am.”

Joann searches Keyla’s face. On the nights with the nightmares, she usually sees pain, and fear, and grief in Keyla’s eyes. Tonight, she sees all of these, but more than anything else, she sees exhaustion. Desperation, and exhaustion.

“Will I ever get to leave that bridge?” Keyla’s voice is raw with fatigue, tinged with desperation and what sounds like it could be despair.

“Oh, Keyla,” Joann breathes, wishing she knew what to say. The only thing she is certain of is that this isn’t the time for platitudes. “I…I don’t know. I don’t know how long your mind will keep pulling you back there. But we’ve seen how the nightmares are getting less frequent, and that’s a good sign, and…” Joann sighs again. “Oh, Kay, I just...I wish I could pick you up in my arms and carry you away from it all. I wish I could keep your mind from pulling you back to there, but even if it does, you’re safe on the Discovery. You’re safe in your quarters, and I’m here. I’m right here.” Leaning forward, she presses a kiss to Keyla’s sweaty temple. “I’m here, and I love you. So so much.”

Keyla nods, smiling crookedly as a single tear rolls down her face to dissolve into the pillow. Reaching forward, she touches Joann’s face gently as she whispers, “Thank you."

They lie together in silence for a moment before Keyla glances over at the lamp and adds, her tired voice somewhat steadier, “Alpha shift’s in four hours. We should get some sleep.”

“All right.” Joann reaches up to extinguish the light, and they move toward each other in the darkness, snuggling against each other as Keyla pulls the comforter up to their shoulders.

Joann presses another kiss to her hair. “I’m right here,” she whispers, and Keyla makes a quiet, contented sound of acknowledgement.

“Good night, Jo,” she murmurs.

“Good night, Kay.”

Joann is almost asleep when Keyla’s voice floats quietly over to her. “Joann?”

“Mmm?” she asks sleepily.

“I love you too.”


End file.
